Hi There,
One quick question about the REST API requests.
the documentation seem to suggest the API url will be: “https://api.smartthings.com/v1/…”.
Is this correct?
or can I send requests directly to the hub using its IP: “http:// [Hub.IP}/v1/{endpoint}”
thank you for your time 
Ben
The answer is, no. You’ll have to access the api for your home automation through Smart Things servers.
I guess you guys use the bearer token to figure out who the user is, and where to redirect?
It kind of feels like I’m coding Alexa in a sense that my app is requesting something from your servers only to return back to a device.
Why not use local API service on the Smart things Hub? Keep the information from leaving the smart homes?
Wouldn’t there be more money made if the only redirects that were happening to external servers were happening to sign in a user to their local environment from a remote device? Keep the Smart Home service local and off AWS?
In any case, the API is super easy to get the hang of. It works great!
Hi @Benjamin_Anderson! Welcome to the community!
Exactly as you say the answer is no, remember that the devices connected to the SmartThings cloud are not only SmartThings devices, and hence there is more to consider before retrieving the data locally.
Currently, when creating automations, depending on the devices, some do not need to go to the cloud, allowing a better performance, but dependes on the device types, and automations.
SmartThings is constantly evolving, if you want to check a bit more, on how the ecosystem works the first image here should give you an idea!